Mr. Lang's Dole: The Administration of Food Relief in New South Wales, 1930-1932

Abstract

in other states was made by F. A. Bland, then a lecturer in public administration at the University of Sydney.1 While limiting himself mainly to a formal and factual description, Bland indicated his critical attitude by his approving quotation of the Webbs' judgement about 'the fatal attraction of the easy policy of relief which was 'nearly as easy as doing nothing'. In more recent times the interest of historians in the Depression has concerned itself less with administrative principles and organisation than with the psychology, sociology, and politics of unemployment.2 In respect of Adelaide, Ray Broomhill has mainly stressed the psychological impact of unemployment but has also enquired into the physiological effect of malnutrition.3 G. F. R. Spenceley has investigated the administration of charity relief at Melbourne but his account ends in 1930.4 In respect of New South Wales, historians have largely disregarded the records of the Chief Secretary relating to the unemployed. In 1931 alone the Chief Secretary's Department filed over 16,000 letters and the surviving records fill 66 boxes; perhaps three-quarters or more of the 'Series A correspondence relates to food relief. Making use of this hitherto underexploited source, the writer aims to present a less formal and restricted account than Bland attempted and to show how far Labor's administration differed from that of the non-Labor governments of Bavin and Stevens. Up to 1930 the government of New South Wales had responded in the traditional way to unemployment.5 It provided relief work for the able-bodied and it subsidised the food relief that voluntary bodies gave to the poor and unemployed. Only family endowment and widows' pensions were determined by statute, other social security payments and services being at the discretion of the government. The Charitable Relief Branch in the Department of Child Welfare under the Minister of Education managed family endowment, widows' pensions, and allowances for needy children and deserted wives; to the Chief Secretary's Department belonged a variety of eleemosynary provisions, especially the issue of rail passes, blankets, and baby outfits, funeral benefits, cash payment for rental arrears and other necessities, and food relief. E. B. Harkness, Under Secretary of the Department, claimed that these purely discretionary payments were efficiently and inexpensively administered and had the advantage of being adaptable and promptly available.6 Between July 1929 and February 1930 the